The Scientist
by Idream3223
Summary: Post DEA, Sequel to Summertime Sadness. AU/OOC. Eric has some healing to do from his time with Appius and Freyda to be ready for the love of his eternal life. *One Shot* but part three in progress. M for love is healing. **Nominee for Hit Me With Your Best One Shot & The Saucy in 2014 You Want Blood Awards**
1. Chapter 1

_A/N This is a sequel to Summertime Sadness, if you haven't read that this may not make much sense to you. :)_

**The Scientist**

_Tell me your secrets and ask me your questions_

_Oh, let's go back to the start._

Eric was molting. Each night on the beach of their world he watched her dance, watched her glow and felt his love for her fill him almost completely.

It was the almost the bothered him. She said nothing in words, but he saw it in her dance. Each night she set up a ring of candles on the beach and danced in that circle of light, slowly, gracefully, feeling the words of the song that she had on endless loop on the speakers he couldn't see but could always hear. _If only Fangtasia had had this kind of sound system_, he thought once wryly. There had always been some squeal of feedback in their system that set his vampire nerves on edge. Here though perfect music followed her where ever she went, and while she said nothing the lyrics pounded his soul and demanded that he let them light the dark that he still clung to fiercely.

For a thousand years he had clung to that dark, hid inside it and protected himself; compartmentalized and secure that no matter what he was forced to endure he would remain intact. Perhaps it had started when he was human, the need to keep his desires separate from his actions for the better of his clan. Perhaps it had started when Appius had claimed him mind, body and soul to remake him in his own dark image. Perhaps he had done it to himself to not have to deal with things that he was not equipped to handle.

No matter how it happened, he had a love in his life that demanded his full surrender. He knew he should be scared, and he was. He was afraid to be totally naked with her, to let her see the things that he had believed, thought and done. If she knew she would turn away and he was already so far in that he could not lose her.

_Nobody said it was easy_

_No one ever said it would be this hard_

Over and over he saw her face the night she had taken him, taken him back, taken him all the way inside her. Her bravery humbled him. He could fight and he could fuck, but he knew in his soul that he had never EVER been that brave. She was on her knees for him, laying herself bare. He could have killed her with a word and they both knew it, in fact she had been sure he would, and she had done it anyway. She didn't know that even if he hadn't still been totally and irrevocably in love with her, that to crush such a brave warrior was not in his making. Even in his human life such bravery was honored. She deserved his reverence, as well as his love, and she didn't know then that she had it no matter what when she took her chance.

They had been inseparable since that night, making love over and over again, the doors of her entire being as wide open as her arms offering him shelter and comfort. He took them like a beggar and offered as much as he could in return. She was never disappointed with what he offered, but he knew that she deserved more, she deserved what she offered him and he had to figure out how to give that to her.

_You don't know how lovely you are_

_I had to find you, tell you I need you_

_Tell you I'll set you apart_

_How do you heal from wounds you never knew you had? No, that's not right. How do you heal from wounds you refuse to see, refuse to treat?_ What they were doing now was the equivalent of her bandaging him and him removing it over and over pretending that there was no wound. Eventually, she would tire of repeatedly trying to help, only to find her bandages in the sand and see him standing before her gushing blood while he smiled and laughed as though he felt nothing. He felt everything. Always. Everything. Always.

And so she danced. She told him that this was the source of her power, this is how she found it within herself the be the woman that he had always seen in her. He had not doubted her but seeing it for himself was another story entirely. Watching her glow as she moved brought tears to his eyes. He had always thought she was beautiful but seeing her like this just left him feeling awed, and small and…unworthy in a million ways. She was above him now. She had changed and grown and offered him what he had always known he wanted from her. What he had told himself countless times that he would know what to do with if she could ever find the courage to step up. She had stepped up, and he was still sitting.

How could he touch a star? Blood tears tracked down his handsome face as she pirouetted in the circle of light just for him. _If I could just get back to the beginning I could be a better man, I could be the man that this brave, beautiful woman deserves_, he thought as he sat in the dark, just outside the reach of her beautiful light.

_Tell me you love me, come back and haunt me_

_Oh and I rush to the start_

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_You heal a broken soul with love_, Niall had told her.

_Know thyself above all things_, Niall had told her.

_Love thyself_, Niall had told her.

All of Niall's words of wisdom echoed in Sookie's mind as she danced. The music, as before was mere white noise as she searched herself and her soul for how to help Eric come home to her. Come all the way home. He had told her once of his time with Appius, downplaying his acceptance of the abuse of his maker. He didn't know it, but even then she had been moved and understood better than Eric ever could have imagined. Uncle Bartlett filled the dark spaces in her mind at the time, living on the real estate of her soul that he had claimed when she was only a child. She had not had a choice either. What she did have was a frame of reference, and an understanding that until she evicted that ghost from her soul she could not be who she was meant to be, the woman worthy to be his wife.

She knew that she had abandoned him to the same fate when she left him to Freyda for five years. Another choice he didn't have, someone else to use him as they pleased, and be damned to what he thought, what he felt and what he wanted. He had forgiven her, and she had forgiven herself that first night, but she could sense that he had not forgiven himself.

She could feel his anger. They had not completed the bonding yet, but still she felt it rolling from himself in waves. She believed it centered around the blame he had for himself for surviving. It couldn't have been that bad if he survived, therefore it couldn't have been bad enough to really hurt him. Except that it had, and he couldn't reconcile the two.

This anger stood between himself and being who he wanted to be. She knew that because she had fought that battle for herself. She would fight it for him if she could, run right in, light and blades flying until all his demons were slain at her feet, but this only he could do. Only he could put them to final rest.

_In order to be free, you have to __**WANT**_ _to be free_, Niall had told her.

She would do anything to help him and she cried at her sense of helpless as she danced full of power that would do nothing to free the man she loved. She would stand here and wait for him forever, but it wouldn't matter if he lacked the courage to join her in the light. If he didn't want to be free.

_Running in circles, chasing our tails_

_Coming back as we are_

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On she danced and Eric watched entranced. His mind was floating now, perhaps in the way she told him that hers did when she found that perfect spot to let go of everything but what was inside her. He knew this was her magic, but a little must have drifted out of the light and into the dark because he heard his father from long ago, saying something that he had told him when he was teaching how to use a sword.

_Failure in not in trying and not succeeding, failure is in not having the courage to try at all._

Eric slowly stood and moved toward Sookie in the circle of light. She saw him rise of out the corner of her eye and when he stepped up beside her, rather than stop dancing she took his hand and pulled him into the movements with her. He had seen her routine so many times he knew the moves and suddenly when he was there to spin her out, and pull her back, lift her up and hold her leg when she formed the perfect shape with her body her dance was complete.

He completed her.

As they danced, Eric saw her glow even brighter and felt his fingers tingle where they touched her, but he would not let go, even if it burned him to the bone. _I will have the courage to try_! He swore to himself, to his father and to his wife. It was then that the music and the lyrics came together for him and he knew then that she had understood all along. That she had been right there beside him even when he thought he was alone.

_I was just guessing at numbers and figures_

_Pulling your puzzles apart_

_Questions of science, science and progress_

_Do not speak as loud as my heart_

_Tell me you love me, come back and haunt me_

_Oh and I rush to the start_

_Running in circles, chasing our tails_

_Coming back as we are_

_Nobody said it was easy_

_Oh it's such a shame for us to part_

_Nobody said it was easy_

_No one ever said it would be so hard_

_I'm going back to the start_

Gently, Sookie jumped into his arms, wrapping her legs and arms around him as he came completely undone, swept away by her magic and the moment of healing that he was caught up in. She cupped his face with her hands and softly kissed his bloodstained cheeks. She pulled back and looked deep into his eyes. The question in her eyes as the music played on was if he could choose, would he choose her? His answer was in his kiss. It was soft, and perfect as he sobbed in her arms, letting all the pain go that he had held onto for long.

As it emptied out of him he felt a sense of weightlessness and they started to rise from the ground, still locked together, spinning slowly. As the surface chipped away to reveal the true man underneath their kiss deepened and their embrace became tighter. Emotions spinning around them they both needed to join to hold onto each other as the rest of everything fell away. She reached down between them as he held her and freed him from his jeans and guided him inside her, slowly until there was no space left between them. Her bottom rested in his hands and he moved her on him, slowly cherishing the feel of her warm embrace, taking him, keeping him safe and loving him like had always wanted to be loved in his secret heart of hearts. Loving him the way he had never felt he deserved to be loved.

"I do love you, Eric. Always have, always will," she whispered breathless in his ear as she moved on him. He moaned and pulled her tighter against him. "No matter what," she continued struggling for breath between passion and tears, "You are mine and I will never let you go!" He was pushing deeply into her now, and she threw her head back looking up at the stars as they spun above the ground. It was a rush to the head to see the stars spinning above them and feeling him touch her so deep inside.

"I love you, too!" he moaned as he moved inside her. "Everything else, it doesn't matter anymore, it was just necessary steps to get me here, to you." She looked back down and stared into his eyes as she felt herself on the edge of ecstasy.

"Then don't hold back, Eric. Give yourself to me. Give me, oh! Give me everything!" He pushed deeply into her again, trying to stay there, inside her, inside this perfect moment forever, knowing that it wasn't possible, but knowing now that they had millions of perfect moments just like this one ahead of them now. It made the inevitable release not only acceptable but desirable because it meant that they got to do this over again.

Afterward, he set them back down on the ground gently and she slowly unwound herself from him, but she stayed pressed against him, her face buried in his chest, which she kissed through his shirt.

"Are you ready to tell me now, my love?" she whispered into his chest.

"Yes," he whispered back, kissing the top of her head softly.

They talked for hours and when it was all done, they knew they had only confirmed what they already knew.

This was real, and it was forever.

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Authors Note:

Special thanks to **Coldplay, The Scientist** for the inspiration of this piece.

Thank you all for your wonderful feedback and comments on Summertime Sadness. I am so glad you all liked it so much! :) I loved writing it!

So, up next the vengeance. This was a much requested sequel so I already know that most of you want to see Freyda get her comeuppance. I tried to write that next but it felt like Eric had some things that he needed to deal with just like Sookie did. I had to give him time to heal before I took them out to handle Freyda. So, what was a one shot will now be a trilogy. It will also be posted as a standalone but I will update this one for followers to let you know its posted.

Stay tuned for _Don't Fear the Reaper._

Blessings to you all! :)


	2. Chapter 2

The sequel to this story Don't Fear the Reaper was just posted. Hope you enjoy!


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